Friday, 29 August 2014

WOW - a phone call from Grosvenor Shows regarding The Great Northern Quilt Show at Harrogate

Well I am absolutely stunned....I received a phone call from Grosvenor shows - Great Northern Quilt show at Harrogate. My cot quilt - Bambino Blues has won FIRST prize!

In my wisdom, I entered two quilts without having made either! I knew pretty much what I wanted to do, but had not got round to doing them so I thought the pressure would just make me do it.

Bambino Blues inspiration came from the fabric itself. I made a machine embroidered pram for the middle in the same colours as the fabric then added a border of green and pinwheels. The most difficult bit was trying to get the borders/middle & pinwheels to fit perfectly. I then added a white border before adding piano keys in all the fabrics.

I have had my longarm around 10 months now and I am really happy with the Auto Pilot (computer) and the wonderful Edge to edge designs that I can do and I already offer this service to other quilters, but I have not really practiced custom freehand quilting, so when I filled out the entry, I said this quilt would be custom longarmed.

So after having made the quilt top, the pressure was on. Everyday I would look at the top and change my mind how I was going to quilt it until the time came when I knew that I had to make a start.

I think I should have had a few gins first, I might have been less stressed and more relaxed. I found the concentration required really tiring and so I left it on the frame and quilted it over several days.

During the process of the quilting, we had a massive leak in the hotel and so I lost two days by having to stop and sort things out.

When I finally took it off, I was really not very happy with it and was seriously considering withdrawing it from the show, but got persuaded to enter it anyway.

I'm so glad I did! Its my first win and only the second time I have entered anything. I cant tell you how surprised and pleased I am.

My other entry is an art quilt. The influence for Percy Puffin came from the wonderful RSPB reserve at Bempton Cliffs, near Bridlington. Every year thousands of Puffins make their home on the cliffs to breed. They are so colourful and cute creatures and each one of them has unique markings.

I started with a photograph and manipulated it on the PC to first Black and white then into several different colour intensities.

Next I had to enlarge it to the size I wanted and print out lots of A4 sheets which I had to join together. I used this to trace the image and the different shades.

I then used a piece of thin iron on interfacing to lay over my tracing. I sprayed this with 505 and I started to add small triangular pieces of fabric for the feathers.

As I wanted to get as much of the detail of the bird correct I opted for larger pieces cut to size for the legs, feet, eyes and beak detail. When I was completely happy with the bird, I gave him a good press with the iron to glue all the bits together. I then cut him out and placed him on to the background fabric I had prepared. I then added a thin water soluble film on top before quilting. I tried to quilt in all the details, the feathers, the eye and the intricate details of the beak and legs and feet.
I also quilted the background fabric - some grasses and cliffs.

Next job was to remove as much of the water soluble fabric as possible before binding the quilt.
The remaining water soluble was removed by giving him a bath then laying him out and blocking him to dry square.

One of my longarm customers also entered two quilts which I quilted for her.

Her piecing is fantastic and both of these tops were a dream to work with.

and here is the pinwheels one -

I am so looking forward to seeing them at the show tomorrow.

Here is the link to my website - Quilt Sandwich where you can details regarding my longarm quilting service, lots of pics and details of our workshops and retreats.